Copy 2

A description of the arteries of the human body / By John Barclay.

  • John Barclay
Date:
1812
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A description of the arteries of the human body / By John Barclay. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    egress, the vessels would proceed gradually extend- ing in length and diameter, until they were rup- tured. And yet the different parts of the system a Caesar, an Hannibal, or a Scipio,—are the safeguard of na- tions, the source of revolutions, and the dread of empires... The same facts, that were dormant and useless in the hands of others, or perverted to trifling conceits and nypotheses, were, under Harvey, the formidable host that overturned: all the pa- ‘tholegical a and all the physiological systems of the time.. What a different man must he then have been from those, who, mean- ly yielding to the fashion, are still employing the nonsensical jargon of the very hypotheses which, he had confuted : Could they, I would ask, who basely are carried down with the stream, after it is almost spent and exhausted—could they, at the time when it spread like a sea, and rushed like a torrent, have been able to have met and stemmed it like Harvey ? . The late Dr, Hunter has, rather invidiously, introducéd him along. with Copernicus and Columbus, to shew, that his merit as a discoverer was comparatively low, But what did Copernicus, and what did Columbus? Not in possession of more numerous facts than their cotemporaries, but endowed with nobler and more vigorous intellects, the one developed the intricate sys- tem of the heavenly bodies, and the other discovered an un- heard-of Continent. Was it not exactly in the same way,. by the exertions of superior intellect, that Harvey made his. im- mortal discovery ? I know not what has happened i in, the.world unseen ;_but,. if I may judge from the records of history,. and ‘the annals of fame, the spirit of Bacon, the spirits of Columbus, ‘Copernicus, and Newton, have not been ashamed. to ecpntlts with, and to welcome the congenial spirit of Harvey... - .
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